Bots: Storage>Requester chests

[Furry Eskimo]

Seems really weird, but my bots are taking all my iron ore, and putting it into storage. WHY??? It SHOULD be going to my smelters!! There are like 100 requester chests asking for ore!

[Hedning]

Bots will take from the closest first, so since he has storage right next to the requester the latency issue shouldn't be a problem. Also bot's won't prioritize one task over another in my experience, so it makes no sense why they should be swamped by the actives. They may be momentarily, but it should find an equilibrium fairly quickly. Something smells fishy with his description of the situation imo.

Maybe they are filling the requesters, but it gets used instantly making them look empty, and since they are right next to the storage the perspective hides the fact that the bots go there.

[Name Lips]

If he has 6000 bots, and they're sitting idle, and thousands of ore piled up at his miners not being delivered, then no matter WHAT the chest priorities are, or what chests are closest -- it should be fixable by increasing the request amount. Increase it until all bots are busy. Whatever number it takes, request thousands of ore if needed. Fill up those requester chests (or buffers, if you've changed them). Don't try to get just one or two stacks -- try to FILL them. If their capacity is 20,000 (I don't remember) go ahead and request 20k ore. Go effing nuts.

The more I think about it, the more I think this will solve it. Once the chests are full, the bots will only deliver what is needed to replace what you use.

[Name Lips]

You mentioned you have power issues. Bots use power every unit of distance they fly. It can knock out your power system if you're not careful. An unpowered bot will seek out a charging point and wait his turn for recharge. Slowly. My god they move slow. But here's the point of this story -- that bot is still counted as delivering his cargo. If he's assigned to deliver a unit of ore, that job doesn't get reassigned just because he runs out of juice. Your delivery bots could all be out of power somewhere, slowing down the whole system.

[Rottenflesh142]

OP is on to sumtim! I had to change all of my yellow chests to red to stop the bleeding of my full nuke cells to my main base. Bots should have filled requester chests at the reactors not storage chests at the main base.

[stlyau]

When you use Active Providers, the bots are gonna take from the closest chests first, thus clearing a patch from closest to destination to farthest. It doesn't clear the patch evenly or as it would normally with Passives. Please read each description below and will you realize why it's taking the ore from miners in the manner that it is.

Active provider chest

The active provider chest is a large advanced storage item that is part of the logistic network. Logistic robots will pick up items from this box to move them to requester chests or the player. Unlike passive provider chests, logistic robots will also actively attempt to move all items within an active provider chest to storage chests when there are no other tasks available. If you don't want the contained items to be moved until they are specifically requested, then use the passive provider chest instead.
Active provider chests have the highest priority as pick-up points for logistic robots when fulfilling requests.

Passive provider chest

The passive provider chest is a large advanced storage item that is part of the logistic network. Logistic robots will pick up items from this box to move them to requester chests or the player only. This makes them useful for storing items in a specific location, rather than a centrally located storage chest. If you want the contained items to later be consolidated in storage chests, then use the active provider chest instead.
Construction robots will pick up replacements for destroyed entities from a passive provider chest.
Passive provider chests have the lowest priority as pick-up points for logistic robots. Logistic robots will not empty passive provider chests if the requested items are available in active provider chests and/or storage chests.

Storage chest

The storage chest is a large advanced storage item that is part of the logistic network. Logistic robots store items picked up from active provider chests here, as well as any items taken out of the player's logistic trash slots. Storage chests can be filtered to only accept one type of item from the logistic network.
Notes
Logistic robots will pick up items in the following priority: active provider chests > storage chests > buffer chests > passive provider chests
Logistic robots will begin to fill storage chests from active provider chests if there are no other tasks available.
The filter that can be set on the storage chest is respected even if items that are actively being pushed to the network can not be stored anywhere else.
If a logistic robot carrying an item is unable to deliver its cargo (e.g. if the player moves out of range), it will drop its cargo in a storage chest before moving to other tasks.

Buffer chest

The buffer chest is a large advanced storage item that functions as both a requester chest and a passive provider chest. The buffer chest functions as an "in-between" chest for ferrying items from provider chests to the player, construction robots, or requester chests.
Like requester chests, buffer chests can be configured to request of a specified number of up to 12 types of items from the logistic network. Logistic robots will then bring the specified items from provider chests or storage chests until the request is met. In addition, similar to a passive provider chest, any items contained in a buffer chest are made available to construction robots, logistic requests from the player, and requester chests that have the "Request from buffer chests" checkbox checked. However, items in a buffer chest are not used to fulfill requests from other buffer chests.

Requester chest

The requester chest is a large advanced storage item that is part of the logistic network. Requester chests can be configured to request of a specified number of up to 12 types of items from the network. Logistic robots will then bring the specified items from provider chests, storage chests, and buffer chests, if the "Request from buffer chests" checkbox is checked, until the request is met.
When fulfilling requests from requester chests, logistic robots will first attempt to pick up the specified items from active provider chests, then from buffer chests if the "Request from buffer chests" checkbox is checked, followed by storage chests, and finally from passive provider chests.

[Killcreek2]

Originally posted by Furry Eskimo:

It is one large network, yes.
The base is currently designed this way because it's not done. I'm trying to build a LARGE base, and it requires space. So I'm just trying to mine out areas, so I can build my base larger. Much of my manufacturing isn't properly automated yet because there isn't room to build.

Ahhh, gotcha. That makes sense, if you hate building over resource patches (as I do).
Hope you are planning to section them off later with item bridges / etc. (Although, you could do that now, if the mono-net is not going to be a permanent feature.)

Originally posted by Name Lips:

that bot is still counted as delivering his cargo. If he's assigned to deliver a unit of ore, that job doesn't get reassigned just because he runs out of juice. Your delivery bots could all be out of power somewhere, slowing down the whole system.

^This.
Check for large queues at roboports, it is a dead giveaway that you may need to add more ports along common flight paths to recharge all the active bots effectively & minimise journey times.

A good way to monitor bot throughput levels is to hover over one of the requestor chests ~ note the "expected deliveries" readout: it should be hovering roughly near <requested items - number in chest>.
If the expected deliveries are full but chest is empty, then you need to increase the request buffer size (as Name Lips said above) due to the item delivery latency.
But, if the expected deliveries are only a fraction of the missing items, then you simply do not have enough bot throughput capacity to meet all of the requests.

It can be rather hard to debug a bot setup...

[Warlord]

I do recall that at the very least, requester chest orders are fulfilled in a "round robin" style distribution. That is, each chest will get their turn, if supply is available. I have never used logistics bots enough that I had more than 2K running around at one time, so I haven't explored the mechanics of having possibly hundreds of provider chests and storage.

Perhaps, if you are having power issues, the bots are simply all busy trying to recharge, as someone said above? That could be why nothing seems to be going right. I recommend at least 1 roboport per 50 active robots, unless you don't mind a short queue occasionally.

[GMC]

My suspicion is that the bots are prioritising emptying the active providers, taking the ore to the nearest storage chest, then don't have enough energy to do anything else.

If you want bot-driven transport, you need a lot of roboports and a lot of power. You also need a lot of bots, but only bots which can actually recharge are of any use. Which is where most people go wrong when trying to use logistic bots en masse; they build thousands of bots but only enough roboports to maintain a few hundred (if that).

Active providers are almost always the wrong tool for the job. If you are consistently producing more than you consume, you should simply allow the pipeline to back up to the source so the producers stop producing. Active providers stop that from happening. Or rather, they'll delay it; the active providers won't start to fill up until every storage chest on the network is full of whatever you're over-producing.

[Killcreek2]

Originally posted by GMC:

Active providers are almost always the wrong tool for the job.

I disagree greatly. Active providers are excellent for many situations, they just require a rather different setup to passives.
Simply changing the provider chest type is not enough to unlock their potential.

Originally posted by GMC:

If you are consistently producing more than you consume, you should simply allow the pipeline to back up to the source so the producers stop producing. Active providers stop that from happening. Or rather, they'll delay it; the active providers won't start to fill up until every storage chest on the network is full of whatever you're over-producing.

If you are not throttling what gets put into the active providers, yes that does happen. Which is exactly the wrong way to use them, imo. Passives would be the "right" choice in that setup.


(For the record, actives are my 2nd-most used logi chest, right behind requestors. Passives are waaaay down the list far below storage, & will probably drop into last place, once I figure out a good use for the new buffer chests.)

[Hedning]

I agree with GMC, actives often just create an in-between step or overcomplicate things for no reason. Like take mining as an exaple: you may think mining the patch more evenly with actives is a good idea, but it doesn't really save any resources, neither materials nor your time, so there's no point.

[Furry Eskimo]

Eventually this won't be much of an issue, as I'm changing to using trains and belts, so mining will be MUCH easier, but I'm using them now because of their simplicity. I throw down a mine schematic, and walk away.

Once I have this area freed up, I'll build my factory and rail lines and whatever else I need, but trains take a LOT of space, so it wasn't possible to easily use them in my initial base design.

Right now I'm just expanding my solar panels, batteries, and exterior perimeter.
I think I have around 8k solar panels now.